The first non-European Pope in more than 1,200 years will put a renewed focus on social and environmental issues and could prove a thorn in the side of powerful world leaders, a religious commentator says.

Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as Pope Francis this morning, taking his name from St Francis of Assisi, famous for turning his back on worldly wealth and communing with nature.

The 76-year-old becomes the first Jesuit to hold the office and the first non-European Pope since the Syrian-born Gregory III in the eighth century.

Religious commentator Clifford Longley, the lead writer for the Vatican journal The Tablet, has told The World Today the new Pope will shake up a Vatican which has been mired in scandal under the tenure of his predecessor Benedict XVI.

Bergoglio had been strongly considered as a successor to Pope John Paul II in 2005, and Longley said his election this time around sent a signal that the cardinals "have really gone back to their other choice".

"The point about choosing somebody in their 50s or 60s is that you could get stuck with somebody for a long time. I think we're going to find that this man's in a hurry because he knows he hasn't got forever," he said.

"In a way that's possibly what they want. They want someone to get a move on and stir things up quickly.

"On issues of sex and morality he is going to be fairly conservative, so I don't expect any apple carts to be upset.

"They [the cardinals] don't want someone to upset some areas of teaching, but they do want the church to be shaken up and they do want it to have a new image, an image of poverty, an image of not being European, not being bound by bureaucracy, of being freer, being much more humane.

"And I think we already saw the human face coming through even in that first meeting between himself and the enormous crowd in St Peter's. There was a humanity about it which I must say I found very attractive."

"But he's seen the effects of it personally in the way that perhaps his predecessors didn't. He's lived among the poor, he knows what life is like when you haven't got two pennies to rub together.

"So he is suddenly a man of the people projected onto the world stage in this way, which is quite astounding.

"I mean I think an awful lot of world leaders are going to have to think quite carefully about how they approach him because he's got a potency because of his chosen poverty."

Longley says the new Pope's choice of name is "very significant".

"If you decode this in the Catholic world, Francis was a great saint of poverty, a man who turned his back on all the material rewards and advantages and chose to be absolutely penniless, and also a man who is immensely green and environmentally aware.

"St Francis is famous for his relationship with nature and so I think we are going to see a much higher profile given under this papacy to issues in that area.

"What I like about him most I think is he is completely unpretentious."